THE Scottish Tories have been slapped down after describing the baby box scheme as “SNP waste”.
Craig Hoy, the Scottish Conservative finance spokesperson, called for the baby box – a free package provided to all expectant parents in Scotland containing essential items and resources to support newborns – to be scrapped as he spoke in a Holyrood debate on Thursday.
MSPs were debating a Tory motion aimed at scrapping free bus travel for asylum seekers and instead bringing in tax cuts.
Hoy claimed that savings could be made by cutting “waste” such as the equalities and human rights budget, the Scottish Land Commission, and baby boxes.
The Tory MSP said: “Let's look at what SNP waste looks like in this Budget alone. £60 million to the woke equalities and human rights portfolio.
“£50m to Ferguson Marine this year, even though the ferries were meant to be completed two years ago. Up to £58m on a national care service that even its own councils now do not support.
“£8m on baby boxes that many new parents don't want, don't need, and don't use.
“£5.5m on fake foreign embassies. £12.8m on a foreign aid budget although foreign aid is reserved. £5.5m on external affairs policy and advice, and £2m for a Scottish Land Commission crammed full of SNP cronies.”
Responding later in the Holyrood debate, Finance Secretary Shona Robison said that the scale of the cuts the Tories were calling for “would have made Scrooge blush”.
“There is a call for tax cuts, which the Tories own estimate says will slash public investment by £1 billion,” she said, before calling on the Conservatives to produce a breakdown of their proposed public service cuts.
She then accused the party of having tried to open “a new front in Russell Findlay’s bargain basement attempt at starting a culture war”.
“This time, it's babies,” Robison said.
“Russell Findlay clearly thinks that babies are a left-wing cabal living on handouts who have had it too good for too long. And now he wants to scrap the baby box.
“It appears that all the work to try and stop being the ‘nasty party’ might have been in vain.”
Green MSP Ross Greer also took aim at the Conservatives for their calls to end the baby box, saying the policy made them “irrationally angry”.
